MAY

I’ve been so caught up with working on this site as of late, that I completely forgot to keep my blog updated. Comes with the ‘tism, I’m afraid! But I’m going to remedy that now. Let’s see…

In my last post, I spoke of journeying into the city to witness the solar eclipse, which I did! Though we did have a bit of a scare regarding our eclipse glasses not getting to us in time. Thankfully, we were able to get our hands on some last minute, and all went smoothly from there. We discovered that the town of Grand Falls was actually hosting a small eclipse-watching party, so we decided to head over there and join in. They were giving out little bags of popcorn and hot chocolate, which was really nice! Lots of people came out, and though some had to leave disappointed after they ran out of glasses to give them (we had gotten ours elsewhere), everyone seemed to have a good time!

Watching the moon slowly creep across the sun was exciting enough, but the feeling that came over me upon pulling my glasses down to reveal 100% totality was like nothing I’ve ever felt before. There was a split second of what I can only describe as primal fear, followed by overwhelming awe. A perfectly black void, haloed by light, hanging in the sky where our sun should be. It felt both unnatural and beautiful, and I wish I could have taken it in for much longer. It’s certainly not something I’ll be forgetting anytime soon.

I did attempt to take some pictures, though none of them actually turned out. My Mom did manage to get a shot, however. It’s not clear by any means, but it’s still ours, from when we were physically there, and I think that’s pretty cool!

While we were in Grand Falls, I checked out the local Walmart and found some of the new generation 7 LPS sets! I knew I really shouldn’t be spending my money on things like LPS at that moment, but I couldn’t help but grab one. I’ve been waiting for them to finally come out in Canada, let alone Newfoundland, and there were only a few left! I had to! I chose the smaller of the two options: the wolf and fish pet pair.

I also found a few other cute things that I didn’t buy, but took some pictures of for future reference: a Stitch plush, and some Sanrio figures!

Back at home, about a week later, I made some cupcakes! I’ve been considering getting into baking more, as I’ve found myself really enjoying it. This past Christmas, I made a lot of treats to use in making up some tins to give out to some neighbors, and I had a really good time. Decorating was especially fun, and nothing beats seeing people try and enjoy something you’ve made! These recent cupcakes were just a box mix, but I did mix up some fun icing in 6 rainbow colors. The cupcakes themselves were lemon-flavored, and the icing was buttercream‒the best kind of icing, if you ask me. I think they turned out well, though if I make more in the future, I’ll choose a different flavor. Or maybe add in a little lemon extract? The lemon just wasn’t lemony enough for my tastes.

Since then, most of my time has been spent working on several different sections of this website! I finally took pictures of all of my LPS pets after scrubbing them and giving a few of them careful acetone touch-ups, and finished their collection page. I really experimented with making my own borders on that page, which I think turned out looking pretty cool. It isn’t exactly the look I was envisioning, but I’m happy with it for now.

I used what I learned from that page to then make the “picture frame” borders for my art gallery’s “by year” pages, which I think turned out really cool! I admittedly have felt a little uncertain about whether it would look better as just a straight-forward gallery that doesn’t utilize zoomed-in thumbnails, but I also do really like the more stylized approach. I suppose we’ll have to see what happens in the future. All I know is that I cropped each of those thumbnails by hand, and I’m not exactly excited about the thought of changing all 200+ of them now!

On May 11th, I attended a local vendor’s market with the non-profit organization I’m apart of called Fight for Access NL. We’re all about advocating for better access, accommodations, and disability education in our province and across Canada. We set up a booth at as many markets as we can to try and spread the word, make connections, and raise some money for ongoing and future projects. So far we’re a fairly small organization, but we’re growing quickly, and have already done a lot of good in our hometown and the surrounding area! We have a few little handmade items that people can pick up when they donate, like buttons of multiple sizes, and info cards displaying either braille or sign language‒the former of which being fully usable. This time, we even had a selection of yarn lanyards that were made by our founder’s stepmom. Those were super popular!

Overall, the market went really well, and we met a lot of supportive people. I really enjoy attending events like this, not just for the opportunity to socialize and help out, but also because it’s one of the best ways to ground myself after spending so much time online. Social media, especially Elon Musk’s new Twitter, can really make you forget that the bigots that scream about wanting you dead really are the loud minority. The opinions of people that want to hurt you for being different, or make entire accounts with the sole purpose of telling you to off yourself, are pushed to the forefront by the Blue Check system, making scrolling through comments an absolute nightmare. You see blatant homophobia, transphobia, racism, ableism, day in and day out, and it makes you feel like the entire world wishes you didn’t exist. But when you walk outside and actually talk to people? The large majority are either indifferent at worst, or supportive at best. Meeting people who are passionate about helping other people is like a breath of fresh air, and the perfect antidote for a pessimistic mindset. It’s easy, when you’re stuck at home‒whether that be related to disability or not‒and all you have to keep you company are the endless voices of the online, to fall into despair, or even into the wrong circles. Having the opportunity to get out and interact with others, even for one day out of a month, has been really nice. I can’t say that it doesn’t make the rest of those days feel a little heavier, but I think it’s a worthwhile trade off.

Keeping my mind occupied is a priority most days, and I can say with certainty that doing so has not been a difficult task as of late. While shifting a few things around on this site in order to make room for an adoptables page and the like, I realized that I could move the original species I had spent a few years working on over here! I had made a Weebly site for them a while back, which included all of the in-depth lore and worldbuilding that I had written, and I thought, ”that would be a perfect project to host on my neocities!” Turns out I was absolutely correct, and I proceeded to spend the next week or so hyperfixated on creating an entire section of this site dedicated to the species. I ended up revamping the lore, adding some new information tidbits, creating a dictionary, and even writing an essay-length retelling of my entire experience with original species and how this one came to be. If you like my writing, and don’t mind me being a little overly flowery and sentimental, you might enjoy reading about it!

Making that section of the site was so unbelievably fun. I always forget just how much I love to write, and to create rich worlds filled with original lore. It also reminded me just how far I’ve come in terms of accepting my art for what it is, and learning to detach myself from the desire for attention. I explore these topics a bit in the aforementioned essay, so I won’t go too deeply into them here, but viewing my art through the lens of social media has always been a hurdle for me. Spending so much time and effort on a piece, only to get very few if any “notes” or “retweets” would genuinely make me feel as though I had failed, and that clearly my work wasn’t good enough. Why is that? When had I lost the desire and the joy to make art just for the sake of making it? I can’t say that I completely know the answer, or that I’m fully removed from the mindset, but I do think I’ve made good progress in changing how I view my work. It’s part of the reason I wanted to move here to neocities!

I also recently added a “snack log” page to the blog, where I can talk about different interesting treats I’ve tried, but that wasn’t nearly as time-consuming. Extremely fun to work on, though far less intense!

I do also want to talk about my recent disastrous trip into Newfoundland’s capital city for medical appointments, but this entry is already getting rather long, so for now, I’ll leave you with some pictures from a nature walk a friend and I took near the Rattling Book falls! (I really recommend clicking on these ones to see them in full resolution!)

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